“Merry Christmas, Ryder!” Multiple voices yell, forcing me to pull the phone away from my ear.
Once the noise dies down, I pull it back. “You put them up to this! I told you not to ambush me,” I scold Beck.
“It’s not an ambush. It’s family,” he defends.
I scoff under my breath, but I don’t hang up. The noise on the other end of the call sharpens as soon as they realize I’m listening.
“Don’t act like you weren’t going to answer,” Zane, our firstborn, cuts in. “You always do.”
“Habit, not affection.”
That earns me laughter—the familiar kind that pulls at the strings in my heart that only exist for them. I catch snippets of overlapping voices—Jace trying to keep order, Beck clearly failing at it, and someone clinking glasses too close to the phone.
“Put him on speaker,” Beck decrees.
“No,” I growl, but I’m too late. The sound blooms, filling my ear with warmth and chaos.
“Wow,” Quinn says immediately. “He sounds grumpy. That’s how we know he’s alive.”
“Barely,” I mutter.
Ava laughs. “You say that every year.”
“I’m consistent.”
That sets them off again. I let it happen, shifting to the side of the terminal where foot traffic thins, leaning one shoulder against a column that’s decorated with tinsel I refuse to look at directly.
Silence falls for half a second, heavy with things we don’t say out loud. Then someone clears their throat.
“Ry.”
Ella.
I get a request to shift to video, and I hesitate for a moment before I accept. She starts crying the moment my face fills the screen. She’s always been a crybaby.
“Ry,” she sniffs, voice thick. “You look… good. Are you eating?”
“Enough.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“When it’s quiet.”
She laughs through it, then tilts the camera so I can see them properly. Her husband steps into frame—a solid presence at her side, one arm wrapped protectively around her. Cole looks exactly like the kind of man who belongs by her side—steady, grounded, and rooted.
“This is Cole,” Ella introduces, like I haven’t been tracking him since the day they hired him to build the housing project at Iron Stallion. “And Aria—come here, sweetheart.”
A little girl pops into view, dark eyes curious, smile shy but fearless. She waves at the phone. “Hi.”
I lift two fingers in response. “Hey.”
She grins like I just gave her a medal.
Ella wipes her face, still smiling. “She knows you send the best presents.”
“That’s because he doesn’t show up,” Jace mocks. “Guilt gifts.”
“Strategic generosity,” I correct.
